Sorry for the double post, but apparently they have fixed online game play this year, which is a relief. it was so laggy last year that you couldn't even THINK about playing an online game. I hope that is true.

80% of Planet Earth is covered by water.....The rest is covered by EARL THOMAS!

I got it the minute gamestop opened. It's just as awesome as it always is presentation-wise. there have been a couple glitches, nothing deal breaking though. For some reason on my RTTS charactor Griffey was in AA though

80% of Planet Earth is covered by water.....The rest is covered by EARL THOMAS!

I actually prefer that. It never made sense to me that some random unproven rookie would start out his career on the 40-man roster.

I think the broadcast views are greatly improved. At first look it seems that the fielding has dramatically improved, as well. For instance, in my first franchise game with the Royals, I learned the hard way:

I'm a pretty big Mariners fan, so imagine my dismay when my RTTS guy was drafted by the Athletics!

Doesn't help that he is terrible. 3rd base is a rough position to field, and my guy does not do it well. Plays a decent 2nd base, his 2nd position, but I wish I had made it my primary. Only problem is, I'm hitting ~.200 with limited power and walks. My plate discipline is absolutely terrible (twice I swung at pitches that hit me, lol). It was about .270 to start, but I kept playing for about 10 hours straight and after a while my contacts dried up and my vision just went downhill.

I'm normally pretty solid at video games, and I can consistently beat my friends at Madden or NBA2k10, but I haven't figured out hitting in this game yet, I guess. Any strategies you all use? I try to approach the plate where I will only swing at the 1st pitch if I guess it correctly and can really hit it, but that clearly isn't working (or, at least, it's not sufficient).

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

I did a reboot because I'm a perfectionist and had to go back with a few pics handy to make my dude look more like me (Sad). Ended up getting drafted by the Blue Jays. 2B with C/3B secondary, which pretty much sums up my real life non-pitching career. Playing spot duty utility guy for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (How cool is THAT name?).

Finally came back down to earth in about six weeks into the season, and I'm hitting about .330. At one point I was hitting .556 and feeling pretty invincible.

Toughest thing to overcome was the same damn thing. I still swing at pitches that make me want to strangle myself. Especially when I hack at some out of the zone change up that makes my dude damn near fall down with his off-balance disadvantaged chimpanzee swing.

One AWESOME sequence... well, it's a bit sadistic... My dude was leading off, and the pitcher -nailed- me in the shoulder with the second pitch. Looked like I was getting ready to charge the mound for a minute. Tensions were high. Got around to score. Next at bat, I take the first pitch and LINE it directly up the middle and hit the pitcher in the face. It hit him in the face. It HIT him in the *$&#ing FACE. Coverage goes to the 'Show Motion' and shows it in all its super slow-mo horror. Dude is DONE for the day. Camera cut to my guy standing on first base giving a grin and shrug at the first base coach.

I let one go between my legs at 2nd yesterday. I also ruined a double play by overthrowing my SS, which would've been more acceptable if he hadn't been 10 feet away. I wish the fielding was a little better, at least make them better than your average HS player... Hitting is fun, though. Up to .250 with a lot of RBIs... my guy seems to do well in the clutch. So far I have 3 home runs. One was a solo-shot to tie the game in the 8th, one a two-run HR to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, and another was a walkoff grand slam, bottom of the 10th.

Of course, my strikeout ratio is still 1 every 3.5 ABs, and I only have 3 walks or so. SLOWLY getting the points into contact-hitting, I figure I'll build that up quite a bit and then just use my hitting to get me more training points. My roommate and I have noticed that every character gets drafted by Oakland, at least at our house (3 characters in a row, all drafted by Oakland)

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Most common drafting team for me so far has been Baltimore. Damn Bowie Baysox.

Other than the one Buckner and occasional what-the-hell throw, my dude's fielding has been relatively solid. Think it helps that I've been pumping my reaction skill up a bit. I NEED to focus on clutch hitting. Guy's becoming a real choke hound. What?! Runners in scoring position and two outs? Hackhackhackhack.

I decided to work myself back into the Current Trav Position and try some pitching. It's utterly pathetic, really, as I'm trying to keep things as True to Life as possible, so I'm sitting on an 83 mph fastball. However, I am a Junkball King, so I'm managing to hurl my way through AA (In my near future home! I was drafted to play for the Arkansas Travellers.).

0.00 ERA so far. I'll take it. Hitters are likely befuddled my my "fast"ball and have yet to get a bead on my mix of 12-6 and knuckle curveballs. Already added the circle change, and before long they shall face the wrath of the Trav Knuckleball and the worthless junkball circle shall be complete.

Created my son for RTTS. He's a catcher and was drafted by the Yankees. He's playing for the Trenton Thunder right now.

He plays sparingly, but the team has won all the games he's caught and the pitcher's ERA is well under 2.00 through his first 3 games where he's caught the entire game. Caught a shut-out (starting pitcher couldn't get the last guy out, let two guys on in the top of the 9th but the closer came in and got the final out).

The sad news is that he's currently 0 for 14 with 6 K's. But he does have 1 RBI on a ground-out.

I got traded in June. The bastards! Now, instead of playing for the Fisher Cats, I'm playing for the Rock Cats... Well, at least I'm starting, now. Drove the Horror Slump batting average up to around .210. First game for the Rock Cats against my former team, I hit my first home run. Screw them.

And traded again... I was called up to AAA for some injury coverage. Then I was traded to... Uh... The Lehigh Valley Ironpigs.

So, yeah.

I spent all of two unproductive at bats with the Ironpigs before getting dropped down to Reading. I then spend a few weeks with Reading only to get traded to the Seawolves, where I finished out the season at around .195. Horrid.

Starting off 2011 with Erie has gone pretty well. First week I'm .500 with a couple RBIs. Just happy to not be an Ironpig, I guess.

I started over at 3B (OF Secondary Position) and was just getting killed. Altered some settings and starting hitting above .200 without striking out every other at-bat. Right when I was getting respectable, the Royals traded me to the Astros (involving Lance Berkman). Was starting to really kill in AA and then I got traded again to the Twins organization (involving Joe Mauer, I know right...). After a short 10-game stint in AA and getting promoted to full-time starter at 3B, the Twins promoted to their AAA team. I am now playing spot duty at 3B and OF giving guys time off.

Hawks (but wears other teams apparell too excluding steelers &Nfc west , gotta be honest but the majority of my gear is hawks stuff)2nd favourite team when asked; jets just cause i go to NY when in US , and i wanted them to do well when they were the suckeir franchise

ice hockey:

Rangers

watching canadian teams

baseball:

yankees all the way followed by mets and mariners mets cause i been to a game before and its the other half of ny baseball and mariners because of the seattle love

Smurf dont hate on me and if you do i warn you that i wont allow myself to be raped by you at fifa again

So, Fielder Trav finally made it to the bigs. It took countless trades, a bunch of grinding in the minors, and a 'The Natural' type leg injury that dropped my Speed from 50-something to the low 30's that I still haven't come back from. In August of 2013, I was called up to the Washington Nationals. As a pinch hitter/utility guy I hit .264 with a couple RBI's, no homers, in 38 at bats.

At the beginning of 2014, I've just signed a 4 year, 1.8 million dollar contract with Washington to be a well-paid bench sitter. Starting out the season 0-2 in my pinch hitting duties, but an injury has me working as the Starting Catcher versus Left-Handed Pitchers for 1-6 days! Wooooo.

TravTex wrote:So, Fielder Trav finally made it to the bigs. It took countless trades, a bunch of grinding in the minors, and a 'The Natural' type leg injury that dropped my Speed from 50-something to the low 30's that I still haven't come back from. In August of 2013, I was called up to the Washington Nationals. As a pinch hitter/utility guy I hit .264 with a couple RBI's, no homers, in 38 at bats.

At the beginning of 2014, I've just signed a 4 year, 1.8 million dollar contract with Washington to be a well-paid bench sitter. Starting out the season 0-2 in my pinch hitting duties, but an injury has me working as the Starting Catcher versus Left-Handed Pitchers for 1-6 days! Wooooo.

Dude you got me craving for this game , by the way when you do RTTS do you get too choose if you get drafted or can you pick a team ..or is it both.

Also can you tell me before you get drafted do you do a IQ test or something to let teams know what you are like ?

You don't get an IQ test, but you can "choose" between (I think, I'm trusting my roommate on this) 3 teams when you start out or be drafted. I've made 2 players, my roommate 1, and all three get drafted by the Oakland Athletics, so something seems fishy.

Sarlacc, on comparing .NET to Soccer: And why not? It's a bunch of people running around in circles, feigning pain, and never scoring.

Snohomie wrote:You don't get an IQ test, but you can "choose" between (I think, I'm trusting my roommate on this) 3 teams when you start out or be drafted. I've made 2 players, my roommate 1, and all three get drafted by the Oakland Athletics, so something seems fishy.

This doesn't sound right.

My version was either 'Enter Draft' or be drafted by 'Favorite Team' (One small annoyance I've found. If you want to play a franchise with your profile, it has to be your 'Favorite Team'. I'm planning to do a Mariners 'Chise thread because I just get that bored at times, but I have to change my 'Favorite Team' back in order to do so because I had it set as KC to play THEM, etc...)

Either way, I've been drafted by a few different teams depending on how I made the player. Not sure the draft matters -- Your first few years, you're 'Trade Bait'.

I'm almost a month into my KC Franchise and just dropped a hair-puller to the Mariners.

Up 4-3 with men on 1st and 2nd in the top of the 9th. Hochevar pitched a pretty awesome game... 7 shutout innings to the 2 runs Felix gave up. He was tired and with the leadoff hitter rapping a solid into center field, I thought it'd be safer to go with Juan Cruz. Cruz blew it, and we had to scrabble back from 2-3.

Anyway, with two on and one out in the 9th. Soria gets his ground ball to short. Win!! No... wait. Yunieski Betancourt BOOTS the ball, safe all around. Next batter ropes one into the gap.

We did struggle back to push it into the 11th inning, but that was the game right there. Yuni, you bastard. I'm calling up Aviles.